The sounds of (old) computer games loading

In the 8-bit age, data screeched slowly off tape decks. In the 16-bit era, floppy drives whirred, clinked and chunked according to the peculiarities of the system's disk controller. For the BBC's "Boring Talks"—podcasts about things most people would find boring—journalist Keith Stuart remembers.

If you're never heard these sounds before, you're in for a treat.

Stuart's poetic recollection of a bygone era is well-worth 14 minutes (click the link above, the BBC offers no embeds). But here's some freebase picks:

When you consider that hard drives have their own quieter, subtler song, this is an experience only now dying off for good thanks to solid state storage.